New allegations against seven-times TDF winner from man who helped him win the first three

Tyler Hamilton on CBS 60 Minutes.png

Former US Postal Service rider Tyler Hamilton has told one of America’s leading broadcast journalists that he saw Lance Armstrong inject himself with EPO and that the seven-time Tour de France champion used the banned substance to help secure his first win in the race in 1999 as well as during subsequent editions.

“I saw [EPO] in his refrigerator...I saw him inject it more than one time like we all did, like I did many, many times,” Hamilton told Scott Pelley, host of the CBS show 60 Minutes.

Pelley has spent six month investigating the issue of doping in cycling in the US, with the show, due to be broadcast this Sunday evening, inevitably focusing on Armstrong who along with other riders and staff of the former US Postal Service team is the subject of a federal enquiry.

With Twitter abuzz late last night as cycling fans and pundits discussed the latest accusations, Armstrong tweeted simply: "20+ year career. 500 drug controls worldwide, in and out of competition. Never a failed test. I rest my case."

Yet Hamilton is just one of a number of former members of the US Postal team subpoenaed to give testimony to a grand jury in Los Angeles as part of the investigation.

He retired from cycling in June 2009 shortly before being handed an eight-year ban for doping, having previously served a two-year ban for blood doping and also being implicated in Operacion Puerto.

His gold medal in the 2004 Olympic Individual Time Trial was also achieved under a cloud of suspicion, with Hamilton testing positive for blood doping but escaping on a technicality after the testing lab froze his B sample, rendering it unusable.

Memorably, Hamilton once insisted that his abnormal test results arose from his having had a phantom twin that had been absorbed within his own body while he was a foetus inside his mother's womb.

Now, however, like Floyd Landis before him, in pointing his finger at Armstrong Hamilton has finally admitted his own use of performance enhancing drugs. Indeed, at the same time as CBS went live with his allegations, Hamilton sent a letter he had written to close friends and family to make his confession. The text of that letter, a copy of which was also sent to ESPN, appears at the end of this article.

Armstrong, for his part, continues to maintain that he has nothing to hide and has never failed a drugs test; according to CBS, Hamilton reveals that his team leader confided to him that he had indeed failed a test at the 2001 Tour de Suisse.

Rumours that Armstrong failed a drugs test during that race aren’t new; last year, world cycling’s governing body the UCI stated that no rider on the 2001 Tour de Suisse had tested positive for EPO after Landis accused it of helping cover up a positive test by Armstrong.

Another former US Postal team member, Frankie Andreu, was also interviewed for 60 Minutes, telling Pelley that he hiimself began doping due to results being achieved by other cyclists whom he believed were on drugs.

"Training alone wasn't doing it and I think that's how...many of the other riders during that era felt, I mean, you kind of didn't have a choice," he explained. Andreu has also testified before the grand jury, as has his wife Betsy, who has claimed that she heard Armstrong confess to a doctor after being diagnosed with cancer that he had used performance enhancing drugs.

As they did with Landis, Armstrong and his defence team are likely to reject Hamilton’s claims by pointing out that the word of a man who until now has lied about his own doping can’t be trusted, that Armstrong has never failed a drugs test, and that the whole investigation is a waste of public money.

Mark Fabiani, counsel to Armstrong, aissued a statement on Thirsday saying: "Tyler Hamilton just duped the CBS Evening News, '60 Minutes' and Scott Pelley all in one fell swoop. Hamilton is actively seeking to make money by writing a book, and now he has completely changed the story he has always told before so that he could get himself on '60 Minutes' and increase his chances with publishers.

"But greed and a hunger for publicity cannot change the facts: Lance Armstrong is the most tested athlete in the history of sports: He has passed nearly 500 tests over 20 years of competition."

Hamilton, however, isn’t just another domestique who worked for Armstrong at US Postal; he was one of the team’s most complete riders, and one of his team leader’s most trusted lieutenants, helping him win the Tour de France three times before moving to CSC at the end of 2001.

That date in itself is significant – Hamilton’s time at US Postal didn’t overlap with Landis’s spell there, so the pair’s allegations cover separate periods and different incidents.

Fourth overall in the 2003 Tour de France despite fracturing his collarbone on the opening day, Hamilton never got the better of Armstrong in thcycling's biggest race after leaving US Postal. A courtroom battle may be another matter altogether.

Text of Tyler Hamilton's letter to family and friends:

I hope this finds you all doing well.

First of all, sorry for sending this out as a group letter. If there was any way I could come visit each of you individually, I would. I hope we are together soon.

There's no easy way to say this, so let me just say it plain: on Sunday night you'll see me on "60 Minutes" making a confession that's overdue. Long overdue.

During my cycling career, I knowingly broke the rules. I used performance-enhancing drugs. I lied about it, over and over. Worst of all, I hurt people I care about. And while there are reasons for what I did -- reasons I hope you'll understand better after watching -- it doesn't excuse the fact that I did it all, and there's no way on earth to undo it.

The question most people ask is, why now? There are two reasons. The first has to do with the federal investigation into cycling. Last summer, I received a subpoena to testify before a grand jury. Until that moment I walked into the courtroom, I hadn't told a soul. My testimony went on for six hours. For me, it was like the Hoover Dam breaking. I opened up; I told the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. And I felt a sense of relief I'd never felt before -- all the secrets, all the weight I'd been carrying around for years suddenly lifted. I saw that, for me personally, this was the way forward.

The second reason has to do with the sport I love. In order to truly reform, cycling needs to change, and change drastically, starting from the top. Now that I'm working as a coach, I see young people entering the sport with hopes of making it to the top. I believe that no one coming into the sport should have to face the difficult choices I had to make. And before the sport can move forward, it has to face the truth.

This hasn't been easy, not by a long shot. But I want to let you know that I'm doing well. The coaching business is more fun and fulfilling than I'd ever imagined, and Tanker (editor's note: Hamilton's Golden retriever) and I are loving our Boulder life. I recently turned 40, and my friends threw the best '80s-themed surprise party in the history of the world (hey, most of you were there!). Life is good.

Again, I just want to say I'm sorry, and that I hope you can forgive me. What matters to me most are my family and friends. I'm deeply grateful for all your support and love through the years, and I'm looking forward to spending time with all of you again, hopefully soon. My mom and dad always told me that the truth would set me free. I never knew how right they were.

Born in Scotland, Simon moved to London aged seven and now lives in the Oxfordshire Cotswolds with his miniature schnauzer, Elodie. He fell in love with cycling one Saturday morning in 1994 while living in Italy when Milan-San Remo went past his front door. A daily cycle commuter in London back before riding to work started to boom, he's been news editor at road.cc since 2009. Handily for work, he speaks French and Italian. He doesn't get to ride his Colnago as often as he'd like, and freely admits he's much more adept at cooking than fettling with bikes.

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onlyonediane[157 posts]5 years ago

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Phew, either Lance or Tyler is telling the truth. I so desparetly want to believe it's Lance.

Sigh... The sad truth is many top cyclists have had some assistance right from the get go - champagne, cocaine, heroin, amphetamines, speed balls, EPO, testosterone etc etc. And while there is a way to cheat the system some cyclists will always do it. There are almost certainly cyclists using something that no one has heard of yet that is untraceable so far, they're using it or looking hard for it, like EPO in the late 90s.

The pressure is immense, the desire to succeed intense, the rewards for being a star are big and worth playing for. I don't condemn anyone for doping because I haven't been there myself. I don't even condemn any of these guys for lying for years, because there's a whole heap of sh*t that comes doen on you if you break ranks.

Does that extend to LA IF he's guilty? Yes. I know these guys cheated and broke the rules but I feel sorry for them, that they need to do this in the first place, that they accept the system and prolong it. I hope they all get through it ok actually and don't 'do a Pantani'. It's easy to say the cheats should burn in hell, but it's more complex than that and the sport as a whole has a lot of work to do. Still. On and on... sigh...

I watched Lance Armstrong race at the age of 15 against professional triathletes and win. It's curious that both Tyler and Floyd have pointed the finger against him: both had major titles stripped from them for doping.

Every athlete that has failed a drugs test, have done so convincingly through drug testing. Lance has been tested like everyone else and never failed. Nobody likes a winner, they never do.

As a defence of Armstrong, that's about as lame as a dog with two legs. What people hate is a winner who has consistently cheated, consistently lied about it and consistently bullied and threatened anyone who dares to question him.

Oh and there are plenty of dope cheats who never failed a test:- Rasmussen, Millar, Ullrich spring readily to mind. Testimony from the likes of Landis and Kohl tells us that tests only rarely catch cheats and passing a test is most emphatically not evidence of being clean.

What they all failed tests. How else have they been caught. Guess work. Did the UCI wake up one morning and decide some riders are guilty of something. I can think of up to 20 riders off the top of my head who failed tests and paid the price. I can think of none who were caught without failing a test at some point.

I'm sorry 500 tests and no problem except from those who have already been caught doping or from there hangers on just to justify there own failings or to sell a book.

I will not convict someone just on the say so of a discredited third party on hearsay with no evidence to support these claims.

Wow, fanboys out in force today! Good luck guys, it's going to be a hard year for you.

One person stands to gain financially from lying and maintaining the lie. I'll give you a clue - he fronts up a multi-million dollar business and his name isn't Floyd or Tyler. They stand to gain nothing by coming clean and the old 'they're doing it for the book deal' is just a bog-standard smear from Camp Armstrong. Do please point me in the direction of the $$ that Landis has collected since last year and if you can direct me to the Amazon entry for the book that Tyler is flogging off the back his interview and Grand Jury appearance I'd be glad to buy you a copy.

Oh and as for failed tests, we'll quietly ignore the +tive samples from '99 (EPO), the +tive for corticoids (covered by a retrospective TUE) and the alleged +tive at the Tour de Suisse.

If Hincapie comes out and says Lance was juicing then cat is out the bag for me.

Fraid to say Hamilton and Landis both have track record of not telling the truth.

If Big George popped his head above the parapet I'd bet that plenty of people would claim he was trying to boost sales for his clothing line...

No. George still has too much to lose, except that if he has been called in to testify by the Grand Jury he has two choices, either tell the truth or lie and risk jail time for perjury. Assuming he has been called (inconceivable that he hasn't) the proceedings are secret so he doesn't have to say anything publicly. Tyler's confession has been prompted by his GJ testimony and do you seriously think he's going to lie to them, just to sell a book that only exists in the mind of the Team Tex spin machine?

If Hincapie comes out and says Lance was juicing then cat is out the bag for me.

Fraid to say Hamilton and Landis both have track record of not telling the truth.

If Big George popped his head above the parapet I'd bet that plenty of people would claim he was trying to boost sales for his clothing line...

No. George still has too much to lose, except that if he has been called in to testify by the Grand Jury he has two choices, either tell the truth or lie and risk jail time for perjury. Assuming he has been called (inconceivable that he hasn't) the proceedings are secret so he doesn't have to say anything publicly. Tyler's confession has been prompted by his GJ testimony and do you seriously think he's going to lie to them, just to sell a book that only exists in the mind of the Team Tex spin machine?

It's an alien concept to most of us in the UK, but it should perhaps be emphasised that the whole grand jury thing is a very big deal indeed in the US, and particularly if you are later found to have perjured yourself before it, in which case you could easily be looking at a prison sentence.

So here we have someone whose reputation is already in tatters, who retired just before being handed an eight-year ban for doping, who now risks alienating friends and family after confessing that he has lied to for years by denying having doped.

Someone who reportedly has handed his Olympic gold medal to the USADA just this morning.

Now here's a question - would someone who has lost his career, his place in the sport he clearly loved and excelled at, his wife, etc - would that person, by committing perjury, risk one of the few things left to him, in other words his freedom?

Great reply, totally agree.
Given that cycling is the one sport that has seemingly always been dirty with doping, maybe the sea change that is needed is to legalise the stuff.
After all a lot of the performance enchancers are deemed safe and used in many countries, i.e chlebutorol (spelling!), maybe the only real way to deal with the doping issue is to legalise, standardise, safety test, and issue the stuff. The riders could then have the option, they could declare whether they use or not, what they use, and then the only ones failing the system would be those who use more than that dose or use stuff that isn't on the OK list.
This would negate any possible advantages from doping, ensure safe (ish) levels were maintained, and at the same time would highlight the real top athletes who are able to perform without drugs. - If most were on them, and someone then lied about it, he would be outed straight away, so it'd lead to almost complete transparency.

Dont forget US racehorses are routinely doped within the rules. Something that would lead to bans and legal proceedings in most European countries.

Great reply, totally agree.
Given that cycling is the one sport that has seemingly always been dirty with doping, maybe the sea change that is needed is to legalise the stuff.
After all a lot of the performance enchancers are deemed safe and used in many countries, i.e chlebutorol (spelling!), maybe the only real way to deal with the doping issue is to legalise, standardise, safety test, and issue the stuff.

please enlighten us as to what substances are safe? how do you account for all the cyclists that have died prematurely like Zanette, Ceriani, Salanson or Serman, or had other serious health problems? maybe the real issue is to have a governing body that actually wants to enforce their own rues?

pmr wrote:

The riders could then have the option, they could declare whether they use or not, what they use, and then the only ones failing the system would be those who use more than that dose or use stuff that isn't on the OK list.

total nonsense. you want to stick to WWF if you think that is acceptable for any real sport.

pmr wrote:

This would negate any possible advantages from doping, ensure safe (ish) levels were maintained, and at the same time would highlight the real top athletes who are able to perform without drugs.

you're taling about raising the barrier, not eliminating it. if there's an 'acceptable dope' then how do you tell people what is unacceptable and enforce it once they are habituated to shooting up sand relying on drugs to win?

pmr wrote:

Dont forget US racehorses are routinely doped within the rules. Something that would lead to bans and legal proceedings in most European countries.

no relevance whatsoever. humans aren't racehorses and can't be quietly taken out back and shot when they pass their natural limits.

pmr wrote:

I say get it above board, make it safer, and level the playing field.

i say stop trying to justify someone who has continually cheated, lied and promoted a damaging and dangerous culture in cycling, whilst masquerading as a saint.

wow
I see a lot of attacks here, but not much in the way of actual possible solutions or change.

I agree that the UCI is a problem, and I think a big change is required at the top of the sport.

All I'm putting out there is the question of would it be possible to make what they are already doing safe and shift focus from fighting against it to working to make the substances better for everyone.

Its about time that everyone in cycling acknowledged that doping (of a kind) has always been a massive problem for probably 100 years, one which there is no sign of going away, and realistically fighting it isn't going to work.

That said the first step is admitting the truth, something which is apparently, slowing coming to the surface now.

Also- the assumption that all of these drugs are unsafe, simply because they are banned, is narrow minded.

No doubt many are very unsafe, which is why we need more transparency.

I'm not trying to justify anyone, all I'm saying is that if Lance did it, and tested negative on so many tests, the problem is bigger than anyone ever imagined.

http://clenbuterol.co.uk/
I can go buy this today, and do a "contador" now I'm presuming that as it is openly sold, that it isn't going to lead to my early death.
In any case cycling is dangerous, (RIP WW) and eating too many burgers can also lead to a premature death.

wow
I see a lot of attacks here, but not much in the way of actual possible solutions or change.

I agree that the UCI is a problem, and I think a big change is required at the top of the sport.

All I'm putting out there is the question of would it be possible to make what they are already doing safe and shift focus from fighting against it to working to make the substances better for everyone.

Its about time that everyone in cycling acknowledged that doping (of a kind) has always been a massive problem for probably 100 years, one which there is no sign of going away, and realistically fighting it isn't going to work.

That said the first step is admitting the truth, something which is apparently, slowing coming to the surface now.

Also- the assumption that all of these drugs are unsafe, simply because they are banned, is narrow minded.

No doubt many are very unsafe, which is why we need more transparency.

I'm not trying to justify anyone, all I'm saying is that if Lance did it, and tested negative on so many tests, the problem is bigger than anyone ever imagined.

clenbuterol dot co uk
I can go buy this today, and do a "contador" now I'm presuming that as it is openly sold, that it isn't going to lead to my early death.
In any case cycling is dangerous, (RIP WW) and eating too many burgers can also lead to a premature death.

We've been conditioned to believe that doping is BAD.
By the Horseracing example I was just demonstrating that is is accepted on some level.
Cheating and lying is BAD, breaking the rules is BAD, drugs are part of our lives and Lance wouldn't even be alive without them, drugs and sport collide and will always do so.
The rules need looking at, or some better way of enforcing them, otherwise we're left not knowing who is cheating and who isn't.

wow
I see a lot of attacks here, but not much in the way of actual possible solutions or change.

I agree that the UCI is a problem, and I think a big change is required at the top of the sport.

All I'm putting out there is the question of would it be possible to make what they are already doing safe and shift focus from fighting against it to working to make the substances better for everyone.

Its about time that everyone in cycling acknowledged that doping (of a kind) has always been a massive problem for probably 100 years, one which there is no sign of going away, and realistically fighting it isn't going to work.

That said the first step is admitting the truth, something which is apparently, slowing coming to the surface now.

Also- the assumption that all of these drugs are unsafe, simply because they are banned, is narrow minded.

No doubt many are very unsafe, which is why we need more transparency.

I'm not trying to justify anyone, all I'm saying is that if Lance did it, and tested negative on so many tests, the problem is bigger than anyone ever imagined.

clenbuterol dot co uk
I can go buy this today, and do a "contador" now I'm presuming that as it is openly sold, that it isn't going to lead to my early death.
In any case cycling is dangerous, (RIP WW) and eating too many burgers can also lead to a premature death.

side effects of its abuse including thyrotoxicosis are extremely dangerous and you want to compare it to eating a big mac? i can buy heroin or cocaine on the street, they are dangerous, but if i can buy them online it is ok?

the real issue is cheats and dishonesty-LeMond confronted armstrong at the unveiling of the bio passport 'initiative' and pointed out that the results could be manipulated. he presented the alternative and reliable method of using power output data to out cheats and guess what, no-one wanted to know, least of all armstrong: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ryH650Br8uI

there is medically and practically absolutely no reason why doping cannot be detected and cheats caught so hypothetical and misinformed assumptions, or arguments like 'it's always been this way' such as yours present no real solutions as you claim they do.

arguments like 'it's always been this way' such as yours present no real solutions as you claim they do.

Let's not forget, though, that it *has* always been this way. right from the very start. Back in the second Tour de France 1904 Hippolyte Acouturier was getting a tow by biting onto a cork tied to a wire running from a car. He lost the first because someone spiked his bidon. As the sport has become increasingly spectated, covered on television and regulated from an equipment perspective, substance-based cheating has become the only way to cheat, really. But people *will* always cheat, whatever the goalposts are. We need to educate, and not tolerate a culture of secrecy.

I'm not attacking you pmr, just pointing out that moving the goalposts won't solve the problem.

I hope for real progress this time. If the US busts their most famous international sportsman the UCI will have nowhere to hide anymore. Proper testing can be implemented and monitored to the point where winning clean can be the goal for all riders. And an end to world poverty you say? Well - I have to keep hoping for an improvement on what we have...

Remember Armstrong's last win and his speech in Paris? He felt sorry for those that couldn't believe? It hurts to have my suspicions since 2001 coming to fuitition at last - but surely it's
better to believe and be disappointed than never to believe at all? I feel sorry for those that believed. I feel sorry myself as I wanted to believe and I feel sorry for Armstrong as well.

Let's be honest with ourselves. If you'd cheated death and had a chance to win the TDF against competitors using drugs would your moral compass have been that firm? Really? Are you sure - with everyone streaming past you uphill and you knowing why? If the system of doping isn't stopped ( and it is a system) we can't blame the riders from obeying the system - whether they want to or not. What is indefensible is continuing to go for a record and starting a charity from your fame. The self delusion of sports achievement at it's height.

The last two weeks have been very sad.I hope it hits rock bottom now and the sport is forced to start again properly this time. I still want to believe.